


i could never have predicted you

by serpentineshadows



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Idols, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, POV Yaku Morisuke, Yaku Morisuke-centric, but really this is a fic about a sink, so is this...really...a SINK au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentineshadows/pseuds/serpentineshadows
Summary: Yaku turns on the faucet. Water gushes out, targeting just one section of the sink, and then splashes everywhere.“It’s not that bad,” Lev says, judging. The man who tripped over his own feet just this morning while practicing a dance they’ve done a billion times before. JudgingYaku.Unfortunately, there’s matching judgmental expressions on the rest of his members’ faces, which means that Lev is supposedly the one in the right.An Idol AU in which Yaku loses his mind over a sink.
Relationships: minor Kuroo Tetsurou & Yaku Morisuke, minor Nishinoya Yuu & Yaku Morisuke
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	i could never have predicted you

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been sitting in my fic basement for the past 2 years, and it wouldve continued to sit there if it were not for some of my friends encouraging me to release it, just...haikyuu-ified. (which would explain why you recognize this if you do, but god why would you)
> 
> originally meant to give the starring role to kuroo, but yaku, best ~~demon~~ senpai, took the reins
> 
> apparently.... it was yaku's bday recently....so happy bday, here is some mild anguish over a sink:

When Yaku’s got enough money and when Nekomata’s convinced enough of their success, Yaku gets his own apartment. The day he moves in, he’s almost about to tear up. Almost. It’s something he’s bought with his own money, concrete evidence of his hard-earned success. Music _is_ profitable, Yaku thinks viciously, and Lev flinches at the expression on his face.

Good. Kai was an angel of a roommate, but Lev. Good god, _Lev._ It’s entirely possible Yaku hasn’t yet gotten over the fact that Lev got to have a room all to himself by simply winning at rock-paper-scissors, and he _still_ managed to regularly interrupt Yaku’s sleep.

But now, he has his own apartment, even if his members have invaded it for the time being to throw him a housewarming party (courtesy of Kuroo and his meddling). To be honest, it’s just an excuse for them to party, but Yaku’s not going to argue (much) as long as they don’t make a mess of his new apartment and he gets to keep all the leftover food.

He does, and Yaku likes to think it’s because of the terrifying glare that all the members are practically conditioned to cower at, but something about Kuroo’s smug grin as he waltzes out the door tells Yaku otherwise.

The next day, Yaku’s absolute bliss at the peace and quiet—his joy, his wonder, at having his own living space—is shattered by an innocuous inanimate object. Okay, well, he wouldn’t say it’s innocuous because the thing must be sent from hell.

His sink is the devil itself, trying to test his already-short patience, trying to get him to punch his sink and hurt his hand. He says as much to Yuu when they meet up at a local restaurant for lunch, disguised (or as disguised as they can be, when Yuu’s only got a snapback _and_ sunglasses on even though they’re inside).

Unfortunately, the response he gets is rather expected: “Cheer up, Morisuke-kun! It can’t be that bad. Look on the bright side: you have your own apartment!”

And that’s all that’s really said on that topic before they move on to talking about their projects, and Yaku picks Yuu’s brain for some insight into the brilliance that was his most recent performance.

So really, when Yaku gets back to his new apartment, rejuvenated from meeting with Yuu, he _really, really_ does try to take Yuu’s advice and look on the bright side. For maybe a couple minutes as he takes in his tiny kitchen, trying and failing to ignore the sink that is currently offending all of his sensibilities just by existing.

Yaku braves the daunting prospect of facing his issues head-on and ventures into the bathroom. He very, very lightly nudges the handle of the faucet, and water gushes out, splattering everywhere. Closing his eyes to the eyesore in front of him, Yaku takes a deep breath and stops the stream of water. He takes a hand towel and wipes vigorously at the small puddle of water forming around his sink.

Yet again, Yaku turns on the faucet. Yet again, water gets everywhere outside of the basin. Yet again, Yaku cleans up the mess, and oh joy, there’s more that’s wrong with his shitty sink. The faucet pours water into one tiny corner of his sink and leaves the rest of it neglected.

Yaku resists the urge to scream into the hand towel he has a death grip on.

_lol so is ur sink still sucky_

_loved seeing u again btw, we should meet up more often_

Yes.

_lolol everything will be ok morisuke kun!!_

_No, it will not,_ Yaku doesn’t say, because Yuu is almost always trying to find the bright side of any and all lousy situations, and he doesn’t understand how desperate Yaku has gotten.

He’s even contemplating whether or not it was worth it, refusing to dorm with his members again. He’s considering whether or not hearing Lev stumbling around in the dark like a baby giraffe with too many limbs every single day while he was trying to sleep was even that bad. _That’s_ how far he’s fallen. Yuu doesn’t understand.

* * *

Unfortunately, Yaku finds out that no, he’s not allowed to move out of the apartment he’s just recently moved into. Legality and all that. Hearing this from Fukunaga, he almost goes on strike. Almost. It’s a near thing, and if he didn’t have music to pour all of his frustrations into and was cruel enough to shout at Fukunaga, maybe he would’ve. (This is why Fukunaga is effective as their manager.)

“Whoa, what’s wrong with you?” Kuroo says when Yaku bumps into him while rushing out of the conference room. “I thought you’d be happy to finally have a room to yourself.”

“I _was,_ ” Yaku hisses, hurrying away from Kuroo and towards the sanctuary where he spends most of his time, producing songs. He locks himself in there, ignoring Kuroo’s attempts at finding out what’s wrong. Yaku can already imagine the teasing that’s going to happen, and he’s going to avoid it for as long as he can.

Hours later, Yaku stumbles out of the room, forced out by Fukunaga telling him there’s a schedule they all have to go to. (The other members have long learned to let Fukunaga and Kai handle the Yaku-wrangling, as opposed to the terrifying duo of Bokuto and Kuroo, who manage to just make everything worse. The poor coffee table in their old dorm knows this intimately.)

When Yaku shoves himself into the backseat, curling in on himself with the intention to take a nice, long nap, he swears he hears Bokuto and Kuroo snickering at him, which never bodes well.

When they arrive at the set, Lev nudges Yaku and asks, “A sink? Really?” Bokuto bursts into laughter beside Kuroo, but both Bokuto and Lev are frightened into obedience when Yaku glares at them.

He turns his glare onto Kuroo, who has a wide smile on his face, but Kuroo regularly tests Yaku’s patience and lives to tell the tale. (Yaku dreads the day when Lev grows up and follows in Kuroo’s footsteps.)

The interview goes as well as it possibly could, with Kai deflecting any questions directed at Yaku with ease and Akaashi restraining the disaster that is Bokuto and Kuroo getting to sit next to one another. Kenma, at least, does not pull out his PSP in the middle, like he did the last time, Lev doesn’t trip over and ruin anything on the way out, and they are long past the rookie days of being required to embarrass themselves for attention, so it’s overall a win.

The car drops off Yaku at home, and he trudges up to his apartment, exhaustion sinking itself bone-deep. 

He eats some of the leftovers from the housewarming party. He goes into his bathroom to brush his teeth and helplessly cleans up the area around his sink afterwards.

He collapses into bed.

It’s a slow month for him, but there’s Alissa’s upcoming film debut, as well as Yuu’s newest release, to look forward to.

* * *

The door to Yaku’s composing room slams open.

“Yakkun, Yaku-paisen! Our lovely, wonderful, dearest rapper.” Without even bothering to close the door, Kuroo drapes himself over the back of Yaku’s chair. Yaku can already feel a headache forming. Clearly, Kuroo managed to avoid Kenma, Kai, _and_ Akaashi to come bother Yaku, and that is…concerning. Usually, at least one of them catches him, mid-shenanigan, and puts a stop to it. “Maybe you should…tone it down a bit.”

“Tone down what?” Yaku asks, staring determinedly at the screen in front of him. He’s almost got a track he’s satisfied with.

“It’s just a sink,” Kuroo says, which instantly earns him a glare. As usual, Kuroo is undeterred, but he’s adopted his the-leader-will-solve-this-issue persona. Oh, so it’s gotten to the point that his sink is affecting the team, which means this visit is _authorized_ by the more sane members of their group. Equally concerning. “And it’s just your bathroom sink, right? Why don’t you just use your kitchen sink instead?”

It’s logical. Kuroo is being very logical, but the thing is, it’s inconvenient. It’s inconvenient if he uses his terrible, horrible bathroom sink, but it’s also inconvenient if he has to go all the way to the kitchen to wash his hands after he uses the bathroom. And if it’s going to be inconvenient either way, Yaku’s not going to back down. He hasn’t gotten to where he has today by compromising, and he certainly isn’t going to start today.

Maybe Kuroo can tell because he sighs, sounding way older than a guy in his twenties should, entirely resigned. “Could you, at least, stop scaring Lev so much? I swear, it’s like how it was before we debuted.”

Yaku smiles. “Scared is Lev’s default state.”

* * *

Yaku continues to suffer through life with his terrible, horrible bathroom sink. By now, a year in, he’s gotten used to his frustration. Instead of anger, boiling just beneath the surface, his glare warning everyone off, he’s got it down to a simmer, an annoyed expression that allows his members (read: Lev) to risk bothering him.

During promotions, especially, the issue with the sink rarely bothers him. There’s schedule after schedule, too much happening, for him to really be bothered. (So maybe there’s a puddle of water that’s been chilling on his counter. That’s not anyone’s business but his because it’s _his_ apartment.) It’s a routine of hair, makeup, cameras, performances, interacting with fans that he’s numbingly used to after so many years. Exhaustion settles into his bones, so deep that his brain has fried, and for the first time since he’s moved into his new apartment, Yaku doesn’t have the energy to be annoyed at his sink. There’s barely enough space in his brain for him to think about eating regularly; a stupid, silly sink doesn’t even register anymore.

That is, until the whirlwind of promotions ends, and he’s left with the stunned, gentle calm left in its wake. There’s maybe a day or two of calmness, of settling back into a life where he’s not being shuttled to one schedule after the next, barely able to rest. Then, the frustration returns to him, crashing into his body like a receding tide that’s finally returned.

There’s an alarming amount of water that’s just sitting on his counter and what might possibly be mold. Yaku can already imagine Sakusa’s distaste, and sending a picture of the sorry state of his bathroom wins him a free one-man cleaning service.

Once that’s over with, though, Yaku surveys his pristine sink and counter and just barely lasts a day of functioning like a normal human being before he turns to Kai and asks, “Please come over to my house and destroy my sink for me.”

Kai, unfortunately, declines, because he is sane, and Yaku should’ve really asked Bokuto (without Akaashi supervising), but he does agree to come over to finally see what the issue is. Bless him, Yaku is pretty sure Kai only has the best of intentions when he invites the other members to come along, but he doesn’t really appreciate that they’re treating him like a wild animal and the devil incarnate in the form of his sink like a zoo exhibit. (He’s not 100% sure because there must be some damage done to your character after prolonged exposure to Kuroo.)

Yaku turns on the faucet. Water gushes out, targeting just one section of the sink, and then splashes everywhere.

“It’s not that bad,” Lev says, judging. The man who tripped over his own feet just this morning while practicing a dance they’ve done a billion times before. Judging _Yaku._

Unfortunately, there’s matching judgmental expressions on the rest of his members’ faces, which means that Lev is supposedly the one in the right.

Yaku turns the faucet back on and instructs Lev to try and wash his hands. Water flies out everywhere, even worse than before, and some of it gets on Lev’s shirt. Lev grimaces, only a little, and wipes his hands on a towel.

“You’re too sensitive, Yaku-senpai,” Lev says agreeably. “It’s kind of annoying, but like I said, it’s not that bad.”

The sentiment is repeated by Bokuto and Kuroo, which automatically makes it invalid. Yaku doesn’t hesitate to kick all of his members out of his apartment, insulted that none of them understand how _frustrating_ something as simple as a bad sink can be.

Even Kai looks at Yaku with a gaze full of pity, uncomfortably like the (many) times before their debut when he caught Kuroo and Yaku in the midst of what was questionably a fistfight.

* * *

Fukunaga drops by one day to see what the big deal is, and he doesn’t _say_ anything, but the slight tilt of his head as he observes Yaku’s devil sink, seemingly entranced, tells Yaku everything he needs to know. Fukunaga nods at Yaku on his way out, but by this point, Yaku is too far gone to decipher its precise meaning: acknowledgement, understanding, empathy? None of it matters because Yaku’s sink is still there and subtly ruining his life.

Even _Yuu_ stops by, and he’s fresh off a world tour, smelling like nature, the outside, adventure.

He watches Yaku’s demonstration of how much his sink sucks, eyes sharp, and then bursts into laughter, carefree.

“That’s nothing!” Yuu’s never been one to pull his punches. “Aren't you guys having a world tour next month?”

And Yaku doesn’t even snap at him for laughing, because he’s right. Yaku’s sink probably doesn’t even rank as a problem, not when they’ve had worse on tour, waking up in one city and falling asleep in another, thousands and thousands of miles away.

* * *

Still, Yaku is ready for a change of scenery, specifically from his sink, so he leaves his apartment with a light heart when their world tour starts. 

He’s forced to room with Kuroo, who insists on team bonding and enlists Lev to annoy everyone into cooperating. Yaku has to thank Kenma for the devastating blow he deals Kuroo, which stops “team bonding” for the night, and Bokuto for agreeing to switch rooms with him.

Settling into his new room, after making uncomfortable, pointed eye contact with Fukunaga in the hallway, Yaku’s blessed with peace and quiet. Akaashi is still hanging out with Bokuto and Kuroo for now, so it’s like having his own room with the added pleasure of a functioning sink. Pure bliss.

The downside is, that the concerts—indescribably enjoyable, all of his efforts come to fruition in the form of fans screaming his lyrics alongside him, people who listen to and take comfort in _his_ music—leave him exhausted. There’s no room in him for anything other than zombie-like appreciation for a quiet room, a soft bed, and a functioning sink. The most he can do is shower, sluggishly brush his teeth, drop face-first into bed, pull the covers over himself. Rinse and repeat.

And then, as their tour begins to crawl across the US and they find themselves in LA, Yaku reaches his breaking point. The sink in the hotel bathroom is pathetically shallow, and all that comes out of the faucet is a sad, weak sputter of water that can barely be called a “stream” unless he wants the water to explode out of the faucet and spill all over the counter as he already did.

“It’s for water conservation efforts,” Akaashi observes when he finds Yaku, frozen in shock and staring in horror at the faucet. It’s alarmingly late at night, but Yaku hasn’t been able to bring himself to move yet. “They make the sink that way so you don’t use too much water.”

“Please break the sink,” Yaku asks, nearly pleads, but Akaashi still refuses, looking at Yaku with something akin to pity. Regularly hanging out with Bokuto and Kuroo hasn’t eroded his sense of actions and their consequences yet, unfortunately.

* * *

When they’re back home, Yaku drops off his stuff in the entrance and heads to the bathroom. The sink is still there to greet him. He brushes his teeth, mops up the water, and curses his sink for existing. Collapses into bed.

Today is not the day that he admits that allowing a bathroom sink to drive him insane is pitiable.

* * *

“The songs you’ve been showing me lately are too angry,” Nekomata says in a kind, understanding tone. “They’re not really something we can use as tracks for the group’s albums.”

Yaku stares at Nekomata, numb. His mind is racing, flooded by thoughts. “What do you mean? You’ve never, you’ve, why are you trying to control our albums now?”

Nekomata’s smile is also kind, understanding. “I meant that you could use them as tracks for your next mixtape.”

The fear clutching his heart recedes, and his mind clears. _Oh._

* * *

The bathroom sink is still there to greet him when he comes home, sweaty, gripping a trophy tightly. His hand is probably glued to it, at this rate. It’s his first music show win for one of his solo songs.

He goes into the bathroom, standing in front of the sink. He stares at it, unseeing. His first music show win for one of his solo songs, and it was fueled partly by his frustration toward his bathroom sink.

Kuroo is never going to let him live it down.

Yaku doesn’t know how long he stands there for, sort of laughing in a deranged way, but it’s probably for an unhealthy length of time.

* * *

In a performance, Yaku injures his back. It’s the type of injury that comes with the idol life, that all idols have to grit their teeth and deal with, but that doesn’t make it any more bearable. It’s a pain that follows him everywhere, that haunts him with each performance that he has to sit out, delegated a corner to the side.

As all the members monitor their performances, it’s hard to ignore the gap left by him in their choreo, the gap he’s unable to fill for who knows how long. The rest of the members comfort him in their own little ways, even Yuu chimes in with a voice message (a simple confident _“I know you can recover from this, Morisuke-kun”_ ), but Yaku’s stuck in his own mind, words clashing in his head, an angry melody forming itself.

Yaku has fewer activities than the other members, and constantly moving back and forth between the agency and his home is more painful and troublesome than usual, so he’s confined to his home a lot.

The bathroom sink is still there, the familiar taste of frustration coating his tongue every time he catches sight of it, layered with a new, bitter flavor. Words spill from his hands. His back aches, and his sink sucks, and both of those situations don’t seem like they’ll be improving very soon, so Yaku writes and writes until he doesn’t have any more emotions left to give.

He gets his second music show win.

Yaku laughs himself to sleep amidst the pain and the congratulations from those around him.

* * *

Yaku’s still stuck in his apartment for a few more years, he finds, because it’s not profitable until he lives there long enough. Unfortunately, Yaku has to go off to the military, so it’s not like the apartment is much use for that period of time.

It just so happens Lev is searching for an apartment, and Yaku happily offers up his. So maybe Yaku still hasn’t forgotten Lev’s flippant dismissal of his complaints, and he’ll gladly allow Lev to experience hell with his sink as revenge.

Yaku bids farewell to his sink and to his members the day his military service begins, and he breathes a sigh of relief. Time away from his apartment will do him good.

(Yaku jinxes himself as he ends up stuck in close quarters with many other people, and he finds himself missing his own apartment, where he didn’t have to share a room with so many other people.

“I thought you’d be used to sharing space, as an idol,” one of the guys he’s sharing a room with says, and Yaku scoffs. That doesn’t mean he _likes_ it, but Yaku’s comforted by the idea that Lev must be suffering miserably, living with the sink.)

* * *

Lev is there to return the apartment keys to Yaku, nearly in tears. (“What have you done to Lev!” Kuroo accuses, like Yaku really would’ve been able to do anything from so far away. No, Lev has just gotten his just desserts.) He’s basically sobbing in joy, ready to leave the hellhole that Yaku’s forced to return to.

Yaku strolls in and checks. The bathroom sink is still there to greet him as it always is, unmoved by his almost 2-year long absence.

Later, during a break from dance practice, Lev complains about Yaku’s sink.

“I guess you got hit by the Yaku Curse,” Kuroo says, poking Lev in the cheek and laughing. At both Lev _and_ Yaku, most likely. “You’ve been complaining about it so much.” Yaku glares, sending a nonverbal warning, but Kuroo ignores it, as always. (He has definitely not missed this.)

“No, really!” Lev says, slamming his water bottle onto the ground. “Yaku-senpai’s sink is the _worst_.”

“And so you keep saying,” Kai says mildly, like he’s had this conversation a billion times, “but you didn’t seem to think so when you tried it out the first time.”

Lev pouts, his frown nowhere near as effective as Yaku’s. “But it _is_ different when you have to keep using it. It drives you crazy!”

“It really does,” Kai says, an indulgent smile on his face. He’s used to dealing with idiots, but unfortunately for Lev, this is not one of the times he’s being an idiot. “There must be something in the water.”

“It’s the Yaku Curse,” Bokuto sing-songs, egged on by Kuroo.

Yaku, for his part, doesn’t know whether to feel vindicated or insulted. On the one hand, Lev suffered like he has, forced to eat his own words. On the other hand, they’re treating Lev like he’s crazy, which means they think Yaku’s borderline crazy, too.

Thinking back to when he stood in front of his sink, laugh slightly unhinged, Yaku settles on vindicated. At least Lev knows he was wrong now.

* * *

Yaku tries not to let his glee show on his face too much, but it seems like he’s failing since Lev’s glowering is actually a little intimidating. (He learned from the best.) Only a little, of course. Or maybe Lev’s upset at Shibayama, who Yaku is incredibly thankful for.

It’s finally time for Yaku to move out to bigger and better apartments with better-functioning sinks. He can finally leave his devil sink behind, but the best part is, he can let someone else deal with it. Permanently.

(Yaku is slightly sorry for Shibayama, but really, he ignored all of Lev’s complaints, threats, and whines to accept Yaku’s offer.)

"Kuroo-senpai was _right,_ you really are a demon senpai," Lev wails as Shibayama drags him away, and well, that's music to his ears.

* * *

Yaku’s new apartment features a sink that plants water beautifully into the center of the sink, that doesn’t pour discriminatorily into one corner, that doesn’t splash everywhere.

It’s bliss.

Or at least, it _should_ be.

But Yaku’s new apartment also features a showerhead that only spews ice cold or scalding hot water in a tiny, pathetic stream, as if to punish him for leaving Lev and Shibayama with the devil sink.

He wants to cry.

(The one upside is that Yuu is more understanding about this issue than the previous one.)

**Author's Note:**

> (originally written at 4am, in...hours, after i killed a spider, and washed my hands and my _sink_ )  
> dw, i am fully aware that this is a 1st world problem, and oh god, now in 2020 there are...so many more problems in the world, but i exaggerated x100 for the...sheer stupidity/hilarity
> 
> what was not in the original version, you ask? everything that i used to further my yaku&noya friendship agenda
> 
> my evolution into haikyuu fandom: shippy bokuaka fic --> brokuroo friendship w/ a side of bokuaka --> whatever tf this is  
> is there an audience for this??? who knows, but this is what i have chosen to do w/ my time anyway


End file.
